fandomhigh | Library [03, 20]

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Library [03, 20]

Things had been... quiet, this week. Which certainly seemed like a nice change of pace, so far as Jonothon was concerned. And he really didn't seem to be in any hurry to change that fact, deciding to take things easy today in the library, re-shelving books and dusting.

Now, if only the books would stop un-shelving themselves every time he turned his back to dust.

Ah, the best laid plans of mice and mutants...

[Open!]

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//They shouldn't,// Jono agreed. //But what people don't understand, they tend to fear. And what people fear, they generally don't want to spend much time around.//

Jono spoke with the voice of experience, there.

//I'm graduating, yes. Not entirely certain where to go from here, but I have a few ideas. Most of them... involve pulling off th'band-aid quickly. I don't know what I'd do here over th'summer, anyhow.//

"And some parents have other things going on," Henry said. (His father, for example, had been conducting in-depth research to see how much alcohol the human liver could absorb before giving up entirely.) "They're still your kids."

He shook his head. "Sorry. Just ... the parent in me. Does your girlfriend know you're taking off?"

This was absolutely, positively, none of his business, but the question was out before Henry gave it too much thought.

Jono fell quiet for a moment, and then he gave his shoulders a small shrug.

//She worries,// he said, as if that explained everything. //She's got every reason to, I suppose. But we don't really talk about it. I don't know what it'll accomplish. I just don't...//

He didn't have any idea what he was going to say, and so his gaze turned toward the books again.

//I don't want her t'spend th'next few weeks waiting for it. It isn't as if knowing that something difficult is coming, even well in advance, actually makes it any easier to get through once th'time comes.//

He had experience in that, too.

Henry took a moment to process that. "I guess you're right," he decided. "It sounds like you know what you have to do. There's no reason to ... make it her burden, too. Not when there's nothing she can do."

//She'll probably spend enough time worrying, once I go back,// Jono replied. //I mean... I can write, but I can't phone. If there's any news t'give her, it'll be at th'mercy of any time I might have around whatever's going on, and then the American postal service, on top of it all.//

If there were questions of logistics about text messages and email, they didn't occur to Henry.

"So most of the time, she'll be waiting," Henry said. "Are you even going to try to make a go of it, or are you going to set her free?"

he'd made a go of it with Clare. But he'd never been entirely certain they'd dome the right thing.

Set her free.

There was an interesting choice of words to hand to a boy who constantly beat himself up because he mostly wasn't there in the first place.

//I don't... want to let her go,// he said, feeling small for just a moment before furrowing his eyebrows and looking up again. //And I don't think she'd want me to, either. I've done so much bloody running, Mr. DeTamble. Just my being here is exactly that. I'm tired of it.//

Henry had a momentary stab of something wistful that Jono got the choice to run or not to run. "I'm coming at this from the wrong end," he said apologetically. "I've been disappearing on my wife practically as long as she can remember. If I had a choice, I don't know if I'd do it to her again. I don't know if she'd let me. The fates can be pretty fucking cruel. But if you think you can make being out of touch work for you, I'm not one to argue with other people's relationships."

//I don't know what I can make work,// Jono replied, stuffing his hands into his pockets and looking at the desk all over again. //Things won't be easy. But... alumni are allowed to visit, right? And she can teleport, for that matter. It might bridge th'gap, at least a little.//

He shook his head a little.

//If anything, it isn't th'distance I'm worried about. Here is safe. Where I'm from, on the other hand, isn't. Not really. I might get swept up in it yet.//

Henry almost asked why Jono sounded so certain he wouldn't get a choice about whether he got swept up or not, but then reconsidered. There were times to give advice and times to shut up and listen, and this was feeling like a time to shut up and listen.

Even if he didn't believe there was such a thing as a safe place.

"I don't know the first thing about what you're going back to," he said apologetically. "I'm going to turn into a walking cliche and just say I wish you luck, wherever you end up."

//I'll need it.// Jono looked... perhaps a little thankful, even if the well-wishings were just words. You couldn't stop a war with 'good luck,' so far as he was aware. //Th'longer I spend here, th'more difficult it'll be, stepping back into it.//

He imagined, quite correctly, that humanity wouldn't waste any time reminding him just how different people here were from people there.

"Probably better to plunge right in, then, right?" Henry asked. "It sounds like it won't get any better if you overthink it."

Jonothon shook his head a little, agreeing.

//It won't. It won't get any better no matter what I do. I'm really not looking forward to running headlong into... that. But it's what I have t'do. It's all that's really out there for me, after here.//

It would be war. Always had been, really, only it was fought with protests and politics at first, and then things had gotten messy.

//Hopefully... you've got more to look forward to, come semester's end. I never really had much of a family, but I'll go out on a limb and guess that being so far from yers hasn't been easy.//

Henry shrugged gracefully. "It was hard to miss so much time with Alba," he said honestly. "Clare ... we're in a better place now than we were when I came here. The theory about absence making the heart grow fonder worked for us. Anyhow, they're just in Chicago. It's not like I'm trying to get back to the Balkans."

//Well, no,// Jono allowed, //but we aren't in Illinois, either.//

Distance was distance. You could be three feet away from somebody and still never get to see them. The other side of the wall, after all, probably wasn't in the Balkans either.

"We aren't in Illinois," Henry had to agree. "Hey, at least it's the right year between the two of us, most of the time."

He sighed, leaning against the counter. "I will say it's going to stink, having to go back to hiding the time travel thing. Not that I advertise it here, but at least the entire concept doesn't sound insane."

Jonothon nodded a little bit.

//Tell me about it,// he agreed, gesturing a hand vaguely at his own chest. //Even here, most people think this is... off, a bit. Sometimes I wonder if maybe I'm th'one who's gone completely mental. There's no way any of it should even be possible, right?//

And yet, there they both were, a boy on fire and a time-traveller, both subject to the whims of their genetics.

//But at least here, once people are finished staring, they don't generally try to dissect you or throw things at you or whatever it is they'd do somewhere else.//

"More things on heaven and earth," Henry said. "besides, next to you, no offense, but I am boring. Dishwater dull. Most people at home who know and aren't doctors just say it explains a lot. Then they ask me a lot of questions about lotto numbers and sports bets."

//... You know, now I'm actually disappointed that I never thought to ask about lottery numbers.//

He still had a few weeks before graduation. He could totally get all of the football scores for the past fifteen years before going back to the 90s, at least. Right?

"Sorry, one-time use," Henry said, though he couldn't prevent himself from smirking. "Let's say I have a very nice house for a librarian married to an artist. But if I overdid it ... the last thing I need is for Illinois to decide I'm a lottery cheat."

Even though he, in fact, was a lottery cheat. Yes.

Edited 2011-03-21 02:36 (UTC)

//The important part is not getting caught, hm?//

Yep. Jonothon was so collecting stats of important sporting events for the next decade of his life or so.

//I suppose, somehow, I shall have to get by.// Such a difficult life. //Knowing my luck, I'd place a bet on th' World Cup, and that'd be th'game that gets called on account of yet another super-powered villain attempting to destroy large portions of New York.//

"Yet another," Henry said, halfway mocking. "I hate it when that happens. It's like the supervillains know when I have tickets to a show..."

He suspected the sarcasm might be overkill, but it was hard to stop.

//Clearly, we do not have th'same New York,// Jono replied, catching the sarcasm and quite alright with it. //Though, I must admit, I was only almost eaten by th' tar-coloured mutant bone-marrow sucking cannibal with mouths in his hands th'twice...//

And people wondered why he dreaded graduation.

Edited 2011-03-21 02:54 (UTC)

"That may be the most honestly disgusting thing I have heard in quite some time," Henry said.

He ... sounded a little awed by it.

[OOC: Night, you.]

//I would say I wished that I had made that up, but then I would have to have my head checked for signs of criminal levels of depravity. Or sommat.//

Jono shrugged.

//Such is life, mate.//

[Night!]

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Library [03, 20]

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